Chapter 12 #2
What was even more appealing was that Mr. Tolberton owned a small hunting lodge outside of London which had a greenhouse on the grounds, almost entirely unused.
It had been quite simple, really. The middle-aged couple, who were the only servants at the house, were unsuspecting of the Italian widow who had settled in the area for a few months and befriended the young miss.
Zephyra created the appearance of a violent death, like the work of desperate men.
It had been equally simple to kill the girl and her governess.
She ransacked the house and stole all its valuables, making it appear as though the residents had been killed by robbers.
She took the innocuous pieces that could be easily sold and buried the rest—all emblazoned with the family crest, or pieces of jewelry unique enough to be identified to the family—in a hole she had dug deep in the woods.
The most difficult aspect of the plan had been when she had to transport Miss Tolberton’s body to a lonely stretch of highway where she sold it to a pair of resurrectionist men.
She then made her way to the nearest town on foot and hired a post chaise to take her to London.
Mr. Tolberton had not seen his daughter in several years, and he did not suspect that the surprisingly slender young girl who appeared on his doorstep was not his own child. She tearfully told the story of how she had heard robbers killing the caretakers and governess and had escaped out a window.
Yes, she had fooled them all. But not this man, this Mr. Norton. She seethed with frustration.
His gaze narrowed as he regarded her. “Although I have not often been to many events populated by young ladies making their debut, I have seen several of the young women in society. There are two or three, as I recall, with your stature.” He glanced at her hair.
“I would hazard a guess you are wearing a wig.”
“Of course I am wearing a wig,” she snapped. “Did you expect me to visit Maxham without some sort of disguise?”
“Children, children,” Maxham chided them, “there is no need for arguments. Miss Irvine is here now, and I am grateful she is looking well.”
At that moment, there was a soft knock at the door, and then it opened to reveal the servant carrying a tray with a pot of tea and cups.
Maxham gestured to him and spoke a few words in his language, and he set the tray down on the small side table next to Zephyra’s chair.
She was surprised to find treacle buns had been served alongside the tea.
“If you would pour, Miss Irvine?” Maxham requested.
The teapot and cups were made of cream-colored earthenware rather than the fine china used in her father’s townhouse, but the set was new, without tea stains, cracks or chips, and the cups fit smoothly in the saucers, their glaze yet uncracked.
She poured tea for both Maxham and Mr. Norton before pouring a cup herself, but she did not drink until she saw Mr. Norton take a sip. She served treacle buns to them on small plates that matched the saucers.
Maxham had never made a pretense of being a gentleman, but he did like the finer things in life. His tea set spoke to that, although she was surprised by the treacle buns—they were unusual for tea, and she had not known that Maxham favored them, although Jack did …
A realization suddenly washed over her like cold water.
It was whispered throughout the Long Glades that Apothecary Jack had disappeared. That news was the entire reason she had finally acted against Mr. Lander, Maxham’s attorney.
And yet, here was Maxham in this house, serving treacle buns.
“And how is Jack?” She tried to affect an arch tone, but she feared her voice was too loud, too bright, revealing her nervousness. “Is he well? I had heard he disappeared for a while.”
Maxham smirked at her as if he knew what she was truly trying to ask. “Jack did disappear for a time,” he said in a lazy voice, “but he returned two days ago.”
Zephyra set her teacup down and was embarrassed when it rattled against the saucer. It was as she had feared.
She had expected the Citadel to need a new botanist, and no one else could grow the Goldensuit as well as she. Zephyra was more skilled with plants than even her sister, who had been much better than Ward.
No one could compare to Jadis, of course, but unlike him, Zephyra and her sister also had some experience in mixing medicines, thanks to their father in his avid pursuit of creating botanical draughts that unsettled the wits.
Jadis might have created dozens of different hybrid plants, but he would not have been able to so quickly determine which hybrids might create a better version of the Blood Nectar, as Bianca had done.
While Zephyra did not have as much experience in the laboratory as Ward, she was certain she was more skilled in alchemy than Jack.
That would be of value to Maxham, surely? Ward would scarcely consider her, but Bianca’s stories had led Zephyra to believe that Maxham valued abilities Ward would overlook.
“How did you hear about Jack?” Maxham sipped his tea.
“Everyone in the Long Glades is talking about it,” she said.
“How strange. I certainly have not heard anyone speaking about Jack.”
“They would hardly say anything in front of you. Even if they cannot know that you are able to overhear them, it does not mean that they are not aware you are nearby.” Really, sometimes Maxham acted more like an ignorant stripling than a grown man.
Mr. Norton regarded her from half-lidded eyes. “So you have been around the Long Glades? A rather dangerous area for a respectable young woman.”
“Street urchins are never noticed.”
He ignored her words. “There are very few situations that would enable genteel young ladies to spend time in places like the Long Glades. Perhaps you attend a church in the area? No,” Mr. Norton answered his own question, “your wealthy guardian would dissuade you from that.”
“As I recall, there are several charitable groups that meet at Brannon Church.” Maxham’s eyes were on his treacle buns, but Zephyra had the impression that he was studiously not looking at her.
“Brannon Church?” Mr. Norton asked. “It sounds familiar, but I do not recall …”
“I am not certain, but I believe that was the church where Mr. Ackett was hiding.” Maxham spoke with hesitation, although Zephyra was sure it was all an act. “We were almost captured, if I remember correctly.”
He had already guessed that she belonged to the charitable group. After all, he was intimately familiar with that particular chapel.
“That is an odd hiding place,” Mr. Norton said. “Wasn’t Brannon Church under the protection of Shepherd Willie and the members of his gang?”
“It was,” Maxham said. “It also served as a doctor’s office of sorts for Lady Nola.”
Zephyra had never met her, but she had heard a great deal about the herb woman known for her sometimes efficacious, sometimes utterly ineffective medicines.
“Why would Lady Nola agree to that?” Mr. Norton asked. “I heard she is quite unreasonably stubborn about only treating patients at her home, and they are only allowed to remain for half an hour.”
“Shepherd Willie had an arrangement in which he would reimburse her for any of his men who showed up at the church and required aid,” Maxham said.
“When Jack killed Willie, he was either unaware or didn’t care about the agreement.
Willie’s men stopped going there for wounds, but the curate wasn’t told about the changes.
When Mr. Septimus Ackett escaped from a fight with Silas and arrived at the church, the curate called Lady Nola. ”
Zephyra had known Mr. Ackett had been broken and bleeding from some sort of scuffle, but she hadn’t realized he’d been fighting with Silas, one of Jack’s men.
Silas was a mountain of a man. But she also recalled hearing rumors about a new injury to Silas’s ear, and wondered if Mr. Ackett had something to do with it.
“Mr. Ackett might have gone unnoticed in the church basement for an entire week, but strangely, a woman with a heavy veil told one of Jack’s men, Mr. Brimley, that he was there,” Maxham said in a mild voice.
Zephyra gave him a flat look. Now he was simply baiting her, or teasing her. With Maxham, it was hard to tell. She settled back in her chair and raised her teacup. “You should be thanking me.”
The corner of Maxham’s mouth curled up. “We would have heard about him eventually. Lady Nola’s greatest skill is not with her herbs and tinctures, but her sense of self-preservation. Only a few hours after we took Mr. Ackett, Silas received a message she had sent after she’d treated the patient.”
“I wasn’t referring to telling Jack about Mr. Ackett,” Zephyra said. “I was referring to the woman you left in the church basement as you departed.”
Mr. Norton frowned at her blunt speech, but Maxham merely raised his eyebrows. Not quite in surprise, but perhaps in faint interest. “I did not hear about that until a week or two later. Was that your doing?”
“As I said, you should thank me.”
Maxham gave a mocking bow from where he sat. “I do thank you, Miss Irvine.”
“What did she do?” Mr. Norton asked Maxham. It annoyed Zephyra that he asked Maxham about what she had done, as if he could not bring himself to speak to her.
“One of the members of the charitable group interrupted us as we were removing Mr. Ackett from the basement of Brannon Church,” Maxham said. “I was careless—I had thought that I had killed her, but apparently she had been merely stunned. I heard later that she was found dead in the churchyard.”
Zephyra said nothing, but then Maxham nodded to her and gestured with his hand for her to oblige Mr. Norton.
She sighed. “I doubt it would have caused you a great deal of distress if she had caused a disturbance in the streets, but she was so hysterical it was quite easy to take her unawares.”
Mrs. Pam Wright had been a bothersome, foolish woman even before she had stumbled into Mr. Ackett and Maxham.
Zephyra had lured her to the churchyard out back with words of sympathy and a hidden flask of whiskey to calm her nerves.
In truth, Zephyra had taken great pleasure in surprising her and stabbing her through the heart.
When Zephyra first discovered Mr. Ackett in the basement of the church, when she had recognized him from the society events they had both attended, and then realized that he was the injured man whom Jack was searching for, she had initially thought to do nothing. She had no wish to aid Maxham or Jack.
But then she realized that helping them to find Mr. Ackett might enable her to gain an audience with them. It was the reason she informed Mr. Brimley about Mr. Ackett, and also the reason she had quietly disposed of Mrs. Wright.
However, upon meeting Phoebe on the steps of the church, she realized that Mr. Ackett was not alone, and there were others acting against Jack, against the Citadel. There was no reason for her to align herself with one group or the other.
And so she had given Phoebe her aid in finding Mr. Brimley. She had even gone so far as to investigate Mr. Poe, murder his friend, and frame him for it.
She found that she relished in this opportunity to help this group who appeared to be defying Jack’s control over the Long Glades.
But then Phoebe and her aunt had supposedly left town. Zephyra suspected they were hiding somewhere in London, and while she searched for them, she knew it would be difficult to find them.
Even when she’d been visiting that tiresome Miss Corbidge for weeks so that she could watch Mr. Sauber’s residence across the street, she’d nearly given up hope—until Phoebe arrived only a few days ago.
Yet over tea, she would not confide more deeply in Zephyra, no matter how many hints about poppies and hybrids she had made.
Zephyra had recently heard Jack had disappeared, and only after her fruitless conversation with Phoebe did she make her choice.
She had begun to feel that chance had favored her. Ward and maybe even Jack would value Bianca’s notes, which had been well-hidden in the wardrobe at the townhouse.
Here was Zephyra’s opportunity to join the Citadel, to plant herself among them and grow deep roots like a weed. And if she planned carefully, she would choke out these poisonous men and revel in their slow deaths.
Except that Jack was returned. She had gambled her life by entering this house, assuming the Citadel would need her.
Zephyra knew she must convince Maxham of her value. If she failed … she would die tonight.